Event information changes for immigration expert's Project Impact talk
October 20, 2011
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The time and location for the Oct. 27 Project Impact 2012 presidential election forum at Purdue University has been changed to 5:30-6:30 p.m. in Lawson Hall of Computer Science, Room 1142.Roberto Suro, director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, a research project at the University of Southern California, will speak at the next 2012: It's Not Just Politics, It's Our Future forum. His talk is titled "After the Storm: The Challenges of Immigration Policy in the Wake of the Great Recession." There will be a reception following the forum in the Lawson Commons. Both events are free and open to the public.
Those attending will have the opportunity to register their opinions during the talk via instant polling.
"Among the many dislocations caused by the Great Recession is an extensive drop in migration worldwide, especially in the movement of low-skilled workers from Mexico to the United States," Suro said. "Even if this isn't the new normal, we've got to ask what the downturn tells us about these flows and the tools available to manage them. And, if we are experiencing a permanent, profound change in our economic structures, we need a fundamental rethinking of our immigration policies."
The forum will open with Ambassador Carolyn Curiel, director of Project Impact, clinical professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication and organizer of the forum series, asking audience members to use their cell phones to text in answers to three polling questions about immigration and will close with more questions about the issue. The answers will be displayed on a screen in real time, and the data will be used for analysis at a later date. Participants are advised that their data plan's standard text messaging rates will apply.
Curiel said the views of students, faculty and members of the community matter in the national debate.
"Immigration policy is more than an emotional campaign topic - it simply cannot be separated from our economic future," Curiel said. "Roberto Suro comes at a heated and complex topic in an insightful and informed way."
Suro, who holds a joint professorship in journalism and public policy at the University of Southern California, will be joined by Purdue professor of political science James McCann and Curiel, who will help moderate the discussion.
Suro was founding director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a research think tank based in Washington, D.C. He began his career as a print journalist, working at Time magazine, the Chicago Tribune, New York Times and Washington Post. At the Times, he was bureau chief in Rome and Houston. He covered the Justice Department and the Pentagon at the Washington Post.
In planning the series, Curiel has the assistance of a directed study class of six students with diverse majors. The students are researching the presidential election while they learn how to organize events with nationally known speakers.
The series began in September with a forum featuring Purdue alumnus and CEO of C-SPAN Brian Lamb and the inaugural class of Purdue students who studied in Washington, D.C., during last summer.
The next scheduled speakers are Mark Halperin, co-author of "Game Change," the best-selling book about the 2008 election and a journalist-commentator with Time magazine and MSNBC. He will be on campus on Nov. 16 and 17. On Dec. 1 the presidential historian Richard Norton Smith, a George Mason University professor who created and/or directed four presidential libraries, will speak on campus. Sites for these appearances will be announced at a later date.
The series will continue leading up to the 2012 presidential election.
The series is made possible by support from the Brian Lamb School of Communication, the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence, the Department of History, International Programs, the Purdue Alumni Association, the College of Technology and the Department of Political Science.
Source: Carolyn Curiel, curiel@purdue.edu